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"If a child is getting their needs adequately met "within the rules," they have no reason to break the rules." I'm not sure the above quote is true at all. Som

"If a child is getting their needs adequately met "within the rules," they have no reason to break the rules." I'm not sure the above quote is true at all. Sometimes your kids want things that you won't give them. You can't keep 100% content kids 100% of the time. Everything you said sounds reasonable but I think kids can get themselves into bad situations even if they are happy and well adjusted. Sometimes hormones can kick in and make you talk to people that you would never normally talk to. It's easy to say that kids that are talking to strange adults online have serious issues in other parts of their lives and fixing those issues will fix everything but I think that's a really simplistic way of viewing the world. I was a very happy and content kid but still got mixed up with things I should not have just because my personality was adventurous and addictive at the time. I'm not assuming my kids will follow my behaviour but I've seen the overly sexualised content one of her friends posts and all of her friends just thinks shes cool for doing so now she has the popular girl feedback loop. I doubt her parents know. Maybe she's got some other issues and addressing those will fix everything or maybe she hasn't got issues but she's just addicted to it? Even if she has got other issues, the first sign might be the crap she does on her phone so it's good if her parents see that sooner rather than later. Maybe you're a great parent but you also had great kids which is only really partially under your control? Not every piece of undesirable behaviour can be easily traced back to an underlying issue that can be fixed. Sometimes it just is. The reason why I ban her from talking to strangers online is because I don't want her to be groomed while she's emotionally vulnerable. Girls can get hooked on the idea of older boys sometimes, I don't think this means they are unhappy and even if a kid is unhappy in some part of their lives, that's normal and that's ok. Sometimes being unhappy is fine and you need to teach your kids how to deal with that but I'd like to know if she's 'self medicating' by sending naked pics to older boys because more subtle signs of an issue might be hard to detect. It's a busy world with two working parents and large demands placed upon us by her school so it can be easy to miss something.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
I did a lot of therapy. I got with the woman in the mirror a whole lot. I suggest you start a journal, explore your own past experiences and try to figure out what went wrong and why and why you still blame yourself so much all these years later such that you need to project your fears onto your daughter and can't trust her to have better sense than you had. Kids doing "bad" things are frequently expressing baggage from the subconscious of their parents that the parents aren't even aware they are hanging on their children. My children were taught from the age of two "It's your body. You can touch it however you want. Just do it in the bathroom or your bedroom with the door shut." When my youngest hit puberty and became hard to deal with because he was hormonal, I explained that his problem was not called "my bitch mother." It was called testosterone. I explained that his system was flooded with hormones and this was why he felt so angry. Knowing that explanation caused him to stop looking for someone to blame his anger on. When he was too ranty, I would say "Ugh, you sound like some hormone soaked teenager." He would say "I am some hormone soaked teenager." He would try to tone down the ranty bullshit and I would try to have some patience and tolerance for the fact that it wasn't entirely under his control. The reason why I ban her from talking to strangers online is because I don't want her to be groomed while she's emotionally vulnerable. What I'm trying to tell you is that you are currently the person doing the kind of grooming that gets girls into bad situations. I think girls tend to like older boys because boys tend to lag behind girls in social skills. Girls interested in older boys are often just looking for someone who is a good social and emotional match. I've had relationships with older men who thought they could control me because of the age difference and I've had relationships with older men who were clear they needed to respect me. Men who thought they could control me got quite the shock. I don't react well at all to efforts to control me. You are teaching her that a man that loves her and wants what is best for her will seek to control her as a normal and caring part of a healthy relationship instead of teaching her "Anyone trying to exert that kind of control is in the wrong and should be told to stuff it." We probably need to stop here because I have very strong views that sending naked pics to someone via internet is vastly safer than a lot of other activities and our laws and culture should promote such safe practices rather than vilifying them. We should punish people for sharing such pics with others without her permission, but she should be allowed to show anyone her body via photographs if that's what she wants as a safer alternative to showing them her body in person. I made my peace with my sexuality a long time ago. That isn't always deemed to be an asset by people when such topics come up.
- notzuck 7y ago
  Well now it just feels like you're attacking me. I'm not projecting anything onto my daughter. I don't blame myself for anything? Maybe you're some expert level parent that most other parents just can't be. Maybe it would take me years to gain the parenting skills that you have but by that time I have already pushed my daughter over the edge? Your one size fits all approach is sad. Why do you feel the need to fix everything by trying to be some sort of perfect parent? Is this because your parents were not perfect? It would be a criminal offence for her to send nude pic to other people, it would also be an offence to solicit those pics. I thought we were aligned on our opinions from your first post but sadly I now just feel that you are very lost and somehow got lucky that your kids turned out ok.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Someone else soliciting nudes from a ten year old is a very different situation from her -- in your words -- 'self medicating' by sending nude photos to boys.
    - notzuck 7y ago
      Sending could be initiated or in response. Plenty of predators on tik tok right now trying to talk to young girls. Good luck with your kids.
- concordDance 7y ago
  > I suggest you start a journal, explore your own past experiences and try to figure out what went wrong and why and why you still blame yourself so much all these years later such that you need to project your fears onto your daughter and can't trust her to have better sense than you had. I though maybe your previous post was a one-off but nope, you really are coming across as condescending. Hopefully by pointing out passages people are likely to find condescending and off-putting you can figure out how to tone that down so it doesn't get people's backs up and drown your message.
  - 7y ago

DoreenMichele 7y ago

I did a lot of therapy. I got with the woman in the mirror a whole lot. I suggest you start a journal, explore your own past experiences and try to figure out what went wrong and why and why you still blame yourself so much all these years later such that you need to project your fears onto your daughter and can't trust her to have better sense than you had. Kids doing "bad" things are frequently expressing baggage from the subconscious of their parents that the parents aren't even aware they are hanging on their children. My children were taught from the age of two "It's your body. You can touch it however you want. Just do it in the bathroom or your bedroom with the door shut." When my youngest hit puberty and became hard to deal with because he was hormonal, I explained that his problem was not called "my bitch mother." It was called testosterone. I explained that his system was flooded with hormones and this was why he felt so angry. Knowing that explanation caused him to stop looking for someone to blame his anger on. When he was too ranty, I would say "Ugh, you sound like some hormone soaked teenager." He would say "I am some hormone soaked teenager." He would try to tone down the ranty bullshit and I would try to have some patience and tolerance for the fact that it wasn't entirely under his control. The reason why I ban her from talking to strangers online is because I don't want her to be groomed while she's emotionally vulnerable. What I'm trying to tell you is that you are currently the person doing the kind of grooming that gets girls into bad situations. I think girls tend to like older boys because boys tend to lag behind girls in social skills. Girls interested in older boys are often just looking for someone who is a good social and emotional match. I've had relationships with older men who thought they could control me because of the age difference and I've had relationships with older men who were clear they needed to respect me. Men who thought they could control me got quite the shock. I don't react well at all to efforts to control me. You are teaching her that a man that loves her and wants what is best for her will seek to control her as a normal and caring part of a healthy relationship instead of teaching her "Anyone trying to exert that kind of control is in the wrong and should be told to stuff it." We probably need to stop here because I have very strong views that sending naked pics to someone via internet is vastly safer than a lot of other activities and our laws and culture should promote such safe practices rather than vilifying them. We should punish people for sharing such pics with others without her permission, but she should be allowed to show anyone her body via photographs if that's what she wants as a safer alternative to showing them her body in person. I made my peace with my sexuality a long time ago. That isn't always deemed to be an asset by people when such topics come up.

notzuck 7y ago
Well now it just feels like you're attacking me. I'm not projecting anything onto my daughter. I don't blame myself for anything? Maybe you're some expert level parent that most other parents just can't be. Maybe it would take me years to gain the parenting skills that you have but by that time I have already pushed my daughter over the edge? Your one size fits all approach is sad. Why do you feel the need to fix everything by trying to be some sort of perfect parent? Is this because your parents were not perfect? It would be a criminal offence for her to send nude pic to other people, it would also be an offence to solicit those pics. I thought we were aligned on our opinions from your first post but sadly I now just feel that you are very lost and somehow got lucky that your kids turned out ok.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Someone else soliciting nudes from a ten year old is a very different situation from her -- in your words -- 'self medicating' by sending nude photos to boys.
  - notzuck 7y ago
    Sending could be initiated or in response. Plenty of predators on tik tok right now trying to talk to young girls. Good luck with your kids.
concordDance 7y ago
> I suggest you start a journal, explore your own past experiences and try to figure out what went wrong and why and why you still blame yourself so much all these years later such that you need to project your fears onto your daughter and can't trust her to have better sense than you had. I though maybe your previous post was a one-off but nope, you really are coming across as condescending. Hopefully by pointing out passages people are likely to find condescending and off-putting you can figure out how to tone that down so it doesn't get people's backs up and drown your message.
- 7y ago